A/N Thanks to those who reviewed!

Chapter 2

"Harvey, did Donna give you those files I left last night?"

Harvey glanced up at Mike, who had just walked into his office, and looked back down at his paperwork.

"Yeah, I got them."

Mike raised his hands questioningly. "What did you think?"

Harvey raised an eyebrow. "What did I think?"

"Yeah; are we going to do the deposition with Friedman, or what?" Harvey signed his name at the bottom of the page with a flourish and set the paper aside, pointedly ignoring Mike's stare. Mike frowned. "Come on, Harvey, you can't think it's that bad an idea! If we press on Friedman and get him to confess, we'll get a whole new window to work with! Let's do it!"

"No."

"Harvey –."

"I said no, Mike, and that's final."

"That's final? Come on Harvey, it'll work! Just give me a shot at it; I swear I can get the guy to break. I –."

"Mike, I said no, and if you continue to fight me on this I swear I'll give you to Louis for a week."

"Well why not? Why is my idea so bad, huh?"

Finally Harvey looked up, catching Mike's eye. "Because it's stupid, and we're not doing it. Friedman most likely has nothing for the case, and if we push him, we'll lose the one guy that can help us when we get the guy that we actually do need."

"I've talked to him, Harvey – he knows something!"

"No, he doesn't."

"Yes he does!"

Harvey stood to his feet, glaring at Mike. "No, he doesn't, and if you try to press him for information he doesn't have, I'll kick your ass into next week."

Mike glared in return. "That family needs us to win this, and if we lose our chance with this guy, then we'll lose the entire case."

"No, we won't – you're exaggerating. Just go back to work and finish the files I gave you this morning, and don't go near Friedman."

Mike held Harvey's eyes for a few brief moments, before shaking his head. "I can get this guy to confess, I know I can. Just give me the day." He turned around and started to leave.

"Mike, I said no." Mike just started to open the door when Harvey's hand suddenly grabbed his arm.

Mike gasped, his breath hissing sharply through his teeth. Pain shot up to his elbow and down to his wrist; he could feel the barely and half-healed cuts split open, breathing fire up and down his arm.

"I said, don't go near Friedman! I –." Harvey stopped. "What's wrong with you?" Harvey let Mike go and Mike quickly tucked his arm into his chest, breathing through the pain. No one said anything for a moment. "What was that?" Harvey asked again when Mike continued not to speak.

"It's nothing," Mike said, forcing himself to casually put his arm to his side, acting as though everything was fine. "I just bumped my arm the other day and it's a bit bruised now, that's all."

"You managed to bruise your arm by bumping it? How hard did you hit it?"

"Pretty hard." Mike angled his arm so that the cuts lay hidden against his side, wishing he had brought his suit jacket. He could feel the fabric beginning to dampen, and he didn't need to look at it to know that the wounds were bleeding.

Harvey looked at him oddly for a moment longer, before turning and heading back to his desk. "Well quit injuring yourself; I need my associate to at least be competent enough to keep himself alive." Harvey sat back down in his chair, giving Mike one last look before turning back to his paperwork. "Get back to work, Mike," he said. "And don't go near Friedman – I mean it."

Mike nodded as he opened the door, and left the room. Donna glanced up at him as he came out, the edges of her eyes portraying her concern. "Is everything alright?" she asked. Mike nodded, suddenly unable to get his tongue to move; all he could think about was getting to the washroom as fast as he could and make the bleeding stop as fast as possible. Donna's eyebrows furrowed in concern, and her eyes followed the younger man as he walked past her desk and down the hallway.

Mike all but ran into the washroom, halting only briefly as he met Louis on his way out. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that no one else was in there. He immediately went into one of the stalls, put down the toilet seat, and sat down.

His heart was thumping wildly and he closed his eyes tightly, taking in deep breaths and slowly letting them out, trying to get himself under control. After a long moment he opened them again and looked down at his arm, inspecting the damage.

A large patch on the underside of the shirt's sleeve was covered with blood. It wasn't soaking through, but if he didn't do something about it now, it would be. He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, laying it on his lap. Most of the cuts along the length of his arm were fine, but the ones that had come under Harvey's grasp were red and bleeding. Mike grabbed a bunch of toilet paper and pressed it on the wounds, wondering why on earth he hadn't bandaged them up the day before. He often did bandage them whenever certain cuts became too deep, or wouldn't stop bleeding, but he had thought he was safe with these ones. The cuts he'd made last night weren't particularly deep, and they hadn't bled for nearly as long as others had in the past, so Mike had no idea why they opened up so easily.

He leaned back against the toilet with a sigh, waiting for the bleeding to stop. That had been close – too close. He'd never had that happen before, at least not on this scale, and the idea of Harvey finding out the truth of why he'd hurt him was almost too over overwhelming to bear. But it was fine, Mike told himself, because Harvey wouldn't find

out; he'd bought his lie without a hitch, and neither of them would say any more about it. Now all he had to do was make it back to his desk without anyone seeing the blood, put on his suit jacket, and the rest of the day would be smooth sailing. Not a problem.

Mike closed his eyes.

Not a problem.

Harvey finished the last of the papers he needed to sign and gathered them up, putting them away into a folder. After this he was going to go outside and get something to eat, and then he'd come back and check on Mike, because when that kid got an idea in his head he could sometimes have a difficult time letting go, and –

Wait.

What was that?

Harvey frowned, pulling out the papers he had just put away. He moved a couple of them aside until he found the one he was looking for. He stared at it, realising that that what he had seen was indeed a stain. A red stain.

His initial reaction was a mixture of annoyance an anger, because a stain meant that a whole new document would have to be made up and he'd have to sign it all over again, and that meant whatever deal it was finishing would take that much longer to go through, and –

But wait. He didn't have anything red. He didn't even have red pens, except for the ones he kept in his desk for rare occasions of editing, but he didn't usually edit anything anymore. Either an associate or paralegal did that, or he used a highlighter. And those were yellow, not red. So why was the paper red?

It was only when Harvey moved his hand that he realised the stain was coming from him. He turned his hand up, frowning at it incredulously, wondering how on earth he'd managed to stain his hand. He was a high-class lawyer – he didn't get involved with anything messy, he couldn't afford to –

Harvey stopped, suddenly realising what it was. It was blood. He inspected his hand, but found no cut on it; he was sure he hadn't injured it, he hadn't even so much as bumped it. So why –

Harvey froze.

Mike.

The blood was on the same hand that he had grabbed Mike's arm with, the one that Mike had said he'd bruised because he was clumsy, or something like that. But then why –

Harvey paused, and his frown deepened. He pressed the button down on the intercom.

"Donna, get Mike back in here. Now."

Mike had just gotten back to his desk when the phone rang with Donna on the other end, telling him that Harvey wanted him back in his office right away. He wondered what Harvey could possibly want; he hadn't had that long a time to make phone calls to Friedman, much less leave the building in search of him himself. So what could be the problem?

He arrived at Donna's desk and shot her a quizzical look, but she just shook her head in return, clearly as baffled as he was. He shot a quick glance through the glass, and saw that Harvey was still sitting behind his desk, looking the same as when he'd left him. With a shrug, Mike went inside.

The moment the door closed behind him, Harvey spoke. "I thought you said you weren't going to lie to me anymore."

Mike blinked.

"What?"

Harvey glanced up at Mike, as though daring him to say that again.

"You lied to me. I thought we'd agreed that wasn't going to happen anymore."

Mike stared blankly at the older man, completely lost. "What are you talking about, Harvey?"

Harvey frowned, and Mike could tell he'd somehow just pissed him off more. "I'm talking about your arm. You said that you bruised it by accident, right? That you'd 'bumped' it? But you didn't, did you?"

Harvey's voice was suddenly drowned out by the blood rushing to Mike's ears, and his heart began to pound. His breath caught in his throat and he vaguely felt like he was going to be sick.

"What… what are you talking about? I said I bumped it and I did, I –."

"No, you didn't." Harvey was standing now. When did he do that? "You cut your arm. I know because you bled all over my hand."

Mike's whole body went completely numb, and his muscles froze. How did figure it out? How could he have possibly figured it out? He hadn't shown anyone, no had had seen, he'd –

"So who did you fight?"

Mike blinked.

Wait, what?

Mike realised belatedly that Harvey was waiting for him to speak, and he quickly began trying to untie his tongue.

"Um, I – that is, I uh, I just… fought, and I… I got… mugged." Mike cursed himself for taking so long to answer, and for not thinking his answer through. So much for having an eidetic memory.

Harvey raised an eyebrow. "You got mugged? When the hell did that happen?"

Mike desperately tried to think up an answer. "A couple… a couple days ago. Yeah, I was walking home because my bike… my bike got a flat tire, and I… someone jumped me; they didn't really do anything, just waved their knife around and wanted my money – you know, the usual sort of thing. I was stupid and fought them, and as a result my arm got sliced. It wasn't deep, you don't have to worry. After I gave them my money they left and I went home; not a big deal."

"Not a big deal? Really? That's what you're going with?"

Mike swallowed. "Yes. Honestly Harvey, nothing happened. I got home, bandaged my arm, and it was fine!"

"It was 'fine'? You got held up at knife point and you say it's just 'fine'? You have no idea where that knife has been! It could have a thousand diseases on it and you wouldn't know!"

"It's fine, Harvey, just drop it."

"Why on earth didn't you tell me?"

"Because I told you – it's not a big deal! What was I supposed to do? Call you? What would you have done? Nothing! Because you can't do anything about it! It's over and done with and to be honest, it's none of your business!" He was yelling. When had he started yelling? And now that Mike thought about it, he realised that he was actually angry. But why?

Harvey seemed as much at a loss as Mike. "Mike, I'm just trying to help you out," he said, looking at Mike in confusion. "You don't have to bite my head off."

Mike stared at Harvey a moment longer before turning around and running his hands through his hair, trying to calm himself down. He had no idea why he was so angry, but he knew that if he didn't leave, he'd say something he'd regret. "I'm going to finish the briefs," he said finally, walking towards the door. "Unless you need anything else?"

Harvey shook his head. "No, you can go."

Mike opened the door, about to step out, when he paused. "Thanks for your concern, Harvey," he said. "Really. But I'm fine; you don't have to worry about me." With that, Mike left, the door shutting quietly behind him. After a few moments it opened again and Donna walked in.

"What do you think that was?" Harvey asked her, his eyes following Mike down the hallway with a frown.

"I don't know. But something's definitely up with him. He's been acting weird all day."

"You think he lied about getting mugged?"

"I think he lied about something; whether it was getting mugged or not, I don't know. But you should talk to him, Harvey."

"I just did; and if you'll remember, it didn't exactly go well."

"Well wait for him to cool down, then try again. Something's bothering him, and he needs a friend to talk to about it."

"So why are you telling me to do it?" Donna just gave him a look. Harvey groaned, sitting back down in his chair. "Fine," he said. "But if the whole thing blows up, don't blame me."

TBC

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